One of the busiest and most prolific film composers
working today, Goldsmith was born in Los Angeles in 1929. He studied piano
with Jakob Gimpel and composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco before
completing his education at L.A. City College and the University of Southern
California where he attended Miklós Rózsas film music
classes. He began his career on the lowest rung of the ladder as a clerk/typist
in the music department of CBS. He persisted in his ambition and was rewarded,
at CBSs famed Radio Workshop, by being given assignments to score live
radio and televison broadcasts during the 1950s. The fact that so many of
these scores were recorded live, allowed Goldsmith freedom to indulge in
a certain amount of add-libbing (he played piano, organ and novachord in
the small ensemble) enabling him to experiment and gain valuable insight
and further his education. His first feature film was for a rather dour
Warner/Montgomery western appropriately called Black Patch
(1957). His reputation grew as his TV work increased for series like:
Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone and Thriller. He
caught the attention of Twentieth Century Foxs music director, Alfred
Newman who was impressed enough with him to persuade Universal to hire him
to score Lonely Are The Brave (1962), Goldsiths first
major film followed by the John Huston biopic Freud (also1962).
Goldsmiths music for Freud was nominated for an Academy Award and confirmed
his place amongst the leaders in his profession.

He is still remarkably busy and his most recent scores include: Powder
(1995); City Hall (1996); Executive Decision
(1996); Chain Reaction (1996); Star Trek: First
Contact (1996); The Ghost and The Darkness (1996) and
Fierce Creatures (1997); L.A. Confidential (1997)
and The Edge (1997) as well as a new logo fanfare for Universal
Pictures.

Goldsmith has won countless
industry tributes and awards including sixteen Academy Award nominations
and the 1976 Best Original Score Oscar for The Omen.
He has also received five Emmy awards, the latest being for Star
Trek: Voyager. In 1995 Daily Variety made Goldsmith
the first recipient of its newly established American Music Legend Award.
He regularly conducts concerts of his music all over the world.

Jerry Goldsmith has also begun a series of archival recordings featuring
the music of his friend and mentor Alex North (1910- 1991). The series began
with the world premiere recording of Norths 2001 and
continued with the landmark scores from A Streetcar Named Desire
and Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He is also
busy recording many of his own major scores for Varése Sarabande including
Patton; Tora! Tora! Tora! (both together on one CD), The
Sand Pebbles, and Frontiers (see our
review) an album of his
classic science fiction themes including: Alien; Logans Run;
Twilight Zone: The Movie; Capricorn One and Total
Recall. He has also recorded his latest Oscar-nominated score,
L.A. Confidential and that for Air Force One
in a busy year working with Varése Sarabande.